Tammy Ayres

The haunting spectacle of crystal meth: A media-created mythology?

For over a decade the media have been reporting in alarmist tones that ‘crystal meth is coming’ to the UK. Using clichéd discourse (‘crazed’, ‘epidemic’, ‘horror’, etc.) and visual images of deformed and disfigured faces, the meanings attached to the drug are clear: crystal meth creates dangerous ‘others’. Yet an identifiable crystal meth problem has hitherto failed to materialise, and press reporting of the issue appears to constitute an exemplary case of what Stuart Hall has described as a double movement within ideological discourse: a movement towards propaganda and a movement towards myth. This article examines how the threat of ‘ice’, as it is commonly known, has been symbolically, aesthetically and textually constructed in the British media, and how this representation has created its own hyper-reality, influencing political debate, drug policy and public reaction. The analysis places particular emphasis on the importance of visual images as a sensory expression of cultural meaning, an aspect of media representation that has too often been theoretically and pragmatically neglected within mainstream criminology.

Prohibition, privilege and the drug apartheid: The failure of drug policy reform to address the underlying fallacies of drug prohibition:

It appears to be a time of turbulence within the global drug policy landscape. The historically dominant model of drug prohibition endures, yet a number of alternative models of legalization, decriminalization and regulation are emerging across the world. While critics have asserted that prohibition and the ensuing ‘war on drugs’ lack both an evidence base and legitimacy, reformers are embracing these alternatives as indicators of progressive change. This article, however, argues that such reforms adhere to the same arbitrary notions, moral dogma and fallacious evidence base as their predecessor. As such they represent the ‘metamorphosis of prohibition’, whereby the structure of drug policy changes, yet the underpinning principles remain unchanged. Consequentially, these reforms should not be considered ‘progressive’ as they risk further consolidating the underlying inconsistencies and contradictions that have formed the basis of drug prohibition.

Evaluation of the Addressing Substance-Related Offending (ASRO) Program for Substance-Using Offenders in the Community: A Reconviction Analysis

This article reports an evaluation of the Addressing Substance-Related Offending program in the English and Welsh Probation Service. Participants were 319 adult male offenders who had a history of substance use and were serving community sentences. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare the reconviction rates of offenders who completed the program, offenders who started but did not complete the program, and a comparison group of offenders who were not allocated to the program. Multivariate analysis showed that at one-year follow-up the completers had a significantly lower rate of reconviction and longer time to reconviction than the non-completers, and the non-completers had a significantly higher rate of reconviction and shorter time to reconviction than the comparison group. No differences were found in reconviction between the completers and comparison group.

Talking Prada and Powder: Cocaine Use and Supply among the Football Hooligan Firm

The first time we published jointly it was to describe in detail the func- tionality of cocaine (used in conjunction with alcohol and on its own) in the subcultural milieu of the English football firm. We suggested that cocaine use in this setting was habitually linked with quite extreme violent exchanges. Our ethnographic data suggested that for many foot- ball ‘lads’ involved in the more organised forms of football disorder, concurrent use of cocaine and alcohol fulfilled three main functions: the facilitation of extreme violence, the acquisition of ‘time out’ and the construction of a (hyper-) masculine identity (Ayres and Treadwell, 2012). Furthermore, data suggested that these functions were not con- fined to the subcultural context of the football firm, but had also become an integral component of their mainstream leisure pursuits within the night-time economy more generally. Hence, there was some blurring of boundaries between football spectator violence and more general per- vasive violence of the nocturnal leisure scene (e.g., see Finney, 2004; Winlow and Hall, 2006).

Bars, drugs and football thugs: Alcohol, cocaine use and violence in the night time economy among English football firms

This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork, the aim of which was to explore the functionality of cocaine (used in conjunction with alcohol and on its own) in the subcultural milieu of the English football firm. The study was originally concerned with the use of violence associated with cocaine use among football fans on match days but, like much ethnography, the research evolved beyond its original remit to include the extension of football firm violence within the night time economy (NTE). The study is unique in giving a voice to this group of individuals and permitting them to be active interpreters of their own world. It included 20 interviews with members of football firms who habitually took part in violent exchanges and found that concurrent use of cocaine and alcohol fulfilled three main functions: the facilitation of extreme violence; the acquisition of ‘time out’; and the construction of a (hyper-)masculine identity. These functions were not confined to the subcultural context of the football firm, but had also become an integral component of their mainstream leisure pursuits within the NTE. The findings from this explorative study also contribute answers to the under researched question of whether those ‘who are violent in the NTE are also violent in other contexts’ (Finney, 2004: 5).

Bars, drugs and football thugs: Alcohol, cocaine use and violence in the night time economy among english football firms

This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork, the aim of which was to explore the functionality of cocaine (used in conjunction with alcohol and on its own) in the subcultural milieu of the English football firm. The study was originally concerned with the use of violence associated with cocaine use among football fans on match days but, like much ethnography, the research evolved beyond its original remit to include the extension of football firm violence within the night time economy (NTE). The study is unique in giving a voice to this group of individuals and permitting them to be active interpreters of their own world. It included 20 interviews with members of football firms who habitually took part in violent exchanges and found that concurrent use of cocaine and alcohol fulfilled three main functions: the facilitation of extreme violence; the acquisition of ‘time out’; and the construction of a (hyper-)masculine identity. These functions were not confined to the subcultural context of the football firm, but had also become an integral component of their mainstream leisure pursuits within the NTE. The findings from this explorative study also contribute answers to the under researched question of whether those ‘who are violent in the NTE are also violent in other contexts’ (Finney, 2004: 5).